


Shatter

by rei_c



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alan Deaton Being an Asshole, Alpha Scott McCall, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Spark Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: Deaton gives Scott and Stiles some unexpected -- and devastating -- news. All their plans for the future will have to be readjusted.





	Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> Idk. *hands*

"So what you're saying," Stiles says, very slowly, very carefully, voice calm and even, tone modulated for nothing more than friendly curiosity, "is that all this training has been a waste. That it's all been for nothing and that I can't do what we've been expecting me to do. That we're going to have to find someone else once you retire because my magic is -- too strong."

"Not too strong, necessarily," Deaton says, "just not suitable."

Stiles narrows his eyes. Scott can feel the firestorm brewing inside of Stiles, can tell that Stiles is ready to throw his hands up and end the world. Still, Stiles holds on to the maelstrom of his magic by the thinnest of threads. Scott's never been so proud of Stiles before in his _life_. 

"Are you planning on retiring?" Stiles asks. "Have you ever been planning on it or was that a lie?" His voice goes low, a crooning, pulsing thing full of a magic that reeks of blood and bone. Scott wants to rub himself up against it, roll around in it. "Too addicted to the power of the pack, Alan? Using the position of emissary to strengthen yourself instead of those you're supposed to be protecting?"

Deaton glances at Scott, pales. Scott wonders what the hell he looks like; Stiles might be fighting to rein in his anger but Scott's given up the fight, has let his eyes flare red and his claws come out. 

"We had no way of knowing," Deaton starts.

Scott's the one to cut him off, say, "Oh?" in a dangerously placid tone at odds with his shift. "We didn't?"

Deaton bites his lip. In the back of Scott's mind, he thinks that it's nice to see the druid -- fuck, Scott _trusted_ him -- start to lose his composure. "Well." 

"Because I can think of two spells and a ritual right off the top of my head," Scott goes on, "and if I can think of three ways to tell, I'm sure you can think of six, and Stiles can think of ten." He pauses, long enough to inhale, deep, exhale, just as deep. He can't rip out Deaton's throat. He has to stay in control. "Did you know, Alan?"

Wolves can hear lies, alphas can hear half-truths, and Scott's travelled the country these last five years, meeting other alphas, staying with other packs, making connections, learning what it means to be a true alpha in the twenty-first century. Deaton's stuck between a rock and a hard place, has to know it.

"Yes," he says. 

Fire bursts out of Stiles' skin, flares corona-like around him in a aura that sends Deaton stumbling backwards but feels nothing so much as comforting, home-like, _safe_ to Scott. It's why they never performed those spells or rituals -- because Stiles' magic, his spark, everything about him, has always felt like that. 

Scott bares his teeth, doesn't know when his fangs fell but they're in his mouth, a comfort as he faces someone who has betrayed him so thoroughly -- betrayed him, betrayed the pack, betrayed _Stiles_. He takes one step towards Deaton, feels a hand on his shoulder. 

"We're leaving," Stiles murmurs. At some point, he's swallowed his fire back down; Scott can feel it still thrumming inside of Stiles, though. "C'mon, Scotty. Let's go." 

It takes more effort than Scott thought he'd be able to drum up, but he follows Stiles, leaves the clinic. 

\--

They go to the nemeton. The tree moved at the last solstice, is four miles deep into the preserve and hidden in a glade that reeks of Stiles' magic; the walk gives Scott enough time to calm down and the safety of feeling Stiles' magic all around him -- them -- has him controlling the shift, pushing it back inside. They sit on the ground, backs against the tree, pressed together from shoulder down to thigh, holding hands as well. Scott's never asked if this grounds Stiles as much as it helps him; he doesn't need to, not when he can smell Stiles relaxing even as his scent starts to fluctuate between vengeful fury and the cool, morning dew odor of implacable calculation. 

"He did it on purpose," Stiles finally says. "He knew all along and he still -- you could've been searching for an emissary the whole time you were out travelling." 

Of course Stiles is more worried about what this means for Scott, for the pack. It's just like him to put his own betrayal to the side. Scott doesn't want him to, wants Stiles to rant and rave and rail against the injustice. Scott's been around the country, sure, but he came back to Beacon Hills at least once a month, got to spend time with his mom, with the pack. Stiles has travelled across the world, fighting and studying and nearly dying more than once, all by himself, and now to learn that it was for nothing? 

Stiles knocks his elbow against Scott's side, says, "Not nothing," because they've been in such perfect sync since they've both been back, older and wiser and more tightly bound than either of them thought possible. "But not for what we expected." 

"Did you know?" Scott asks, has to. 

"Wish I had," Stiles says, "but no. I thought -- being a spark is all about belief, right? I can still do everything a druid can so I never thought -- every emissary I met was a druid but I thought that was -- no. Sparks are rare and it's rarer still for one to bind themself to a pack; I just -- shit, I wish I'd asked. I should've asked." 

Scott elbows Stiles back, says, "You didn't have a reason. I didn't have a reason. Do you think," and he stops, can't ask the question because he knows what the answer's going to be and he can't deal with hearing it. 

Stiles answers anyway; he's never shied away from the tough decisions the way Scott used to. "Belief is one thing, but I'm not a druid. Similarity isn't equivalence. We could try but the backlash --if it doesn't work, the backlash will be brutal. But I'm willing to give it a go if you want." 

\--

They sit, silent, for a long time. The nemeton's a strong, solid presence behind them; it has been ever since Stiles came back from his training and cleansed it, unexpectedly bonding to it and to the land it protects at the same time. Scott never asked Stiles what it cost him, how it felt, but he thinks now that he should have. He should have done so many things. 

"You've never trusted him," Scott finally says. "I always thought you were overreacting. Or that it was a druid thing. But you've never trusted him." 

"There aren't a lot of people I trust," Stiles replies. "It's what makes us a good team." 

Stiles isn't wrong. Scott wants to believe the best of people, always has, and Stiles -- maybe it was losing his mom at such a young age, or learning at an equally young age that the people who you should be able to depend on aren't always reliable, or it could just be Stiles' own moral ambiguity expecting the same ambiguity from other people, but Stiles has never really learned to trust other people. Scott's an exception to that, so is Scott's mom, but the number of other people could probably be counted on one hand with fingers left over. Stiles is used to being let down -- Lydia, Derek, Erica, his dad, they've all broken faith with him -- and that's not right, it's _not_ , when Stiles has so much love and devotion and loyalty to offer. 

"Where -- how -- the pack," Scott says, searching for words that won't hurt, that will express what he's trying to get across without digging the knife even deeper into what Stiles must already be feeling as an agonising injury. 

"I can't be your emissary," Stiles says, "and as much as we'd both be comfortable with me being your second, the others won't." It's an argument the two of them have had many times over the years; it's a conclusion they reached together, one that tears at both of them. "Derek's a good second. We'll deal with Deaton and find you an emissary that fits with the pack. And I'll -- I'm the territory's guardian. That'll have to be good enough." 

Scott squeezes Stiles' hand, rubs his thumb back and forth over Stiles' skin. "It's not good enough," he says. 

Stiles leans, rests his head on Scott's shoulder. "I know," he says. "But it'll have to be."


End file.
